Westerns

Thursday, October 09, 2014

In 1860, [Will] Bill [Hickock] was placed in charge of the teams of the Overland Stage Company, -which ran between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Denver, over the old Platte route, - at Rock Creek, about fifty miles west of Topeka, Kansas. It was while occupying this position that the first and most desperate fight of his life occurred, and one which we may safely say is without a parallel.

The author collected the facts and particulars of this fight from Capt. E. W. Kingsbury, at present chief of U. S. Storekeepers for the western district of Missouri, who was a passenger in the overland stage which arrived at Rock Creek within an hour after the fight occurred, and saw the bodies of the men Bill had killed, and heard the story fresh from Bill’s own lips. Capt. Kingsbury’s version of the encounter is corroborated by Dr. Joshua Thorne, one of the most prominent physicians in Kansas City, who was Wild Bill’s physician during his life, and at whose home Bill was a frequent and familiar visitor. Bill repeated the story to Dr. Thorne several times, just as he gave it to Capt. Kingsbury. Bill had very few confidants, but among that privileged class were the two gentlemen mentioned, who, by their permission, will be frequently referred to hereafter.

The correct story of the “battle,” as we may very properly call it, is as follows:

Thursday, August 07, 2014

Jotting notes for the panel at Nine Worlds... this is not a proper post, just a collection of possible moderation 'pokes'.

I'm fascinated by Westerns - especially the way that the tropes and tricks of the genre have been appropriated and/or assimilated into other styles of literature. Playing with the idea that Westerns now exist everywhere (...except as Westerns), what are the hooks for discussion?

The Western genre peaked in the 1960s. Why?

Changes in format? (death the pulp format meant death of a genre; what's that mean with the format changes in today's publishing industry?)

Reliance on other media? (Wikipedia cites 1960s rise and fall of Westerns as a result of volume of Western TV shows, and viewer burnout) [interesting parallel to modern fantasy]

Change in reader interest? (no more frontiers? Cuban Missile Crisis/Vietnam leads to public discouragement in jingoism? less romance of America within America?)

'Out of ideas'? Can a genre expire?

Age of the genre means that it has had many more stages of growth/descent/evolution [fantasy equivalent]:

'traditional Westerns' - Zane Grey [high fantasy]

pulp/commercial Westerns - Clifton Adam, JT Edson [sword & sorcery]

revisionist Westerns - George Gilman [grimdark]

post-revisionist Westerns - Larry McMurtry, Justified [?!]

Western fusions - David Towsey, Firefly [New Weird]

literary Westerns - Cormac McCarthy, Peter Carey, Patrick DeWitt [?!]

What does this mean for the progression of a genre? (Other examples of contemporary but well-developed genres: romance) Are genres teleological? What does this mean for fantasy and SF?

Thursday, July 17, 2014

I'm always fascinated by the occasions when famous genre writers - the legends of the legendary, if you’ll excuse the horrible workplay - write literary or non-genre fiction. In many cases, they're still exploring those same tropes and themes and issues that appear in their fantasy or science fiction. Is it possible for them to write about destiny and free will without prophesies? Or create escapism without dragons? To craft heroes without Dark Lords?

Back before David Eddings set the world on fire (magical blue fire) with the Belgariad in 1983, he fiddled about in literary fiction. His first novel, High Hunt, was published in 1973. Contemporary and introspective, it is a far cry from the bombastic cosmic conflicts that would later make him famous. High Hunt is a bit like Robert Jordan's The Fallon Blood, in that publishers have tried - repeatedly - to republish and remarket it for the epic fantasy market. But that's where the similarities stop for, unlike The Fallon Blood, High Hunt is actually good.

High Hunt follows twentysomething Dan Alders as he returns from military service and tries to settle in back home. Like Eddings, Dan was posted to Germany (Eddings was in Germany during the Korean War, while Dan’s story takes place during Vietnam). And also like Eddings, Dan is a Washington native - in High Hunt, he returns to Tacoma. Not because he's particularly excited about seeing his old stomping grounds - rather, he's got nowhere else he needs to be.

And this is where the story begins: Dan, freed from service and, in fact, freed from everything. No girlfriend, no parents (his father is dead, his mother an alcoholic that he hasn’t seen for years), no friends - nothing. He’s got money in his pocket, a bag of civilian clothing and a vague plan to attend the University of Washington to get a graduate degree when it starts up next year.

Like much of High Hunt, what happens next is comes down to a whim - a supposed impulse. Dan, casting about for someone to spend a bit of time with (he's just out of the service, after all), rings up his semi-estranged older brother, Jack. They get together and, much to Dan's surprise, they hit it off. And, again, for the apparently lack of anything better to do, Dan gets absorbed into the circle of Jack's life. He moves in to the same trailer court, he meets Jack’s friends (and wife) (and mistress); Dan commits to being in Tacoma until his degree programme begins.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Somewhere between three and five reviews, depending how you count them: Lee Floren's High Gun, J.L. Bouma's Vengeance, Eric Lambert's The Long White Night and Guy Boothby's The Kidnapped President and A Crime of the Under-seas.

Eric Lambert's The Long White Night (1965) - a story of war and its consequences. Lawrence Primrose is a born soldier, a working class stiff who 'finds himself' when he joins the army. He quickly rises through the ranks to become a completely detestable sergeant. He's by the book, unrelenting, priggish - but we forgive him because he's also a fierce bastard in combat, saving his men over and over again.

This is why his court martial for cowardice is such a surprise, and why the officer that breaks him, Colonel Goss, is the real monster of the piece. Years after the court martial and the fateful battle that prompted it, Johnny Hume (once a terrible soldier, now a half-decent psychologist) has set himself to reveal the awful truth behind the events of that fateful night.

The majority of the book is a helter-skelter mix of present day (Hume trying to find Primrose in the years after the war) and past (from boot camp through to the battle). This is all neatly managed, as the author makes untidy Hume and uptight Primose both empathetic and intriguing characters. The latter especially - the snarky Hume is a bit too much of a literary cliche, while Primrose seems to have some genuine pathos to him. What they do during the war, and how it impacts their lives after it, is all connected and capital-m-Meaningful. The author has a clear bone to pick with over-stuffed post-war politicians and a stratified class system, two themes that come through very clearly and by no means harm the book - it is good to read a book on war and its aftermath that tries to paint a picture broader than the central redemption story.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Two distinctly disconnected books - Stark Holborn's Nunslinger and Rapunzel is Dead. Two books that revisit - and directly challenge - established genres: the Western and the fairy tale.

Stark Holborn's Nunslinger (2013) as an object is already interesting. Hodder & Stoughton were pioneers of "yellow-back" fiction - with a bit of effort you can still find relics of this era, with Hodder's doughty brand emblazoned on "low literature" as wide-ranging as The Saint and Zane Grey. Although certainly the imprint has a range of overtly commercial genre fiction (read Lavie Tidhar on Christopher Farnsworth, for one example), Nunslinger is an overt move to embrace this heritage: see the unrepentantly goofy name, striking covers and the serialised format.

The latter is an important part of Nunslinger's unique appeal - in the post-Wool days, a lot of publishers have been tinkering with this, but few works are actually created with that exact purpose in mind. Nunslinger strikes the balance of being both independent and interconnected, the individual episodes begin, resolve and immediately lead into the next. This is a "book" meant to be consumed (pardon the terrible pun) "religiously" - everything about the serial experience is intended to engender loyalty: the emotional highs and lows, the shared 'event' of a release, the continuous (if punctuated) reading. [I suspect that, with the still-rapid growth of digital and the success that's come with migrating fanfiction authors (who have naturally struck on this format) to traditional publishers, we'll be seeing a lot more of this. And, frankly, about damn time.]

But enough about Nunslinger as a book, what's so interesting about Nunslinger as a text? Is there more than a goofy name? Well... yes. A lot.

Monday, November 25, 2013

Eight even-briefer-than-usual reviews as I do some catching up: Peter Haining's The Hero, The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer, Libba Bray's Beauty Queens, Max Brand's The Streak, Sue Kaufman's Diary of a Mad Housewife, Pat Cadigan's Chalk, Patrick Ness' The Ask and the Answer and Lloyd Alexander's The Book of Three.

Peter Haining's The Hero (1975) was terrible. I mean, I was expecting 'bad', but this was terrible. A Cold War thriller, it posits a world filled with peace-and-love-for-all except for the evil Chinese. An ordinary English civil servant is chosen to run an impossible mission behind the 'bamboo curtain': to photograph a doomsday device before the Chinese use it to level the West. A parallel narrative follows a group of film-makers as they make a movie of our hero's adventures. Neither are particularly appealing, and the conclusion is both senseless and distasteful. Oh, also racist. And filled with plotholes and paranoid conspiracy theories. If I were the type to give stars, here's an instance where I wouldn't.

The Short Fiction of Norman Mailer (1967) was my first experience of the man's work. I'm still going to plow on, as I'm extraordinarily interested in "New Journalism" as it applies to, well, blogging. A few stories fell flat with me - "The Time of Her Life", "Advertisements for Myself on The Way Out", "Truth and Being, Nothing and Time", "The Notebook"... all seemed, well, either overly deliberate or too linked to the mores of the time. Others, say, "The Patron Saint of Macdougal Alley", "The Paper House", "A Calculus at Heaven", "The Killer" are some of the best I've read. I suppose any survey of a career this diverse is going to have its ups and down, but I'm pleased that some were so good.

Libba Bray's Beauty Queens (2011) made me laugh out loud a half-dozen times. A dark, slapstick comedy about teenage pageant competitors stranded on a desert island while a bumbling Evil Corporation does Evil Stuff in the background. Ms. Bray takes wonderful pokes at reality television, consumer culture, nepotism, television, the South,... pretty much everything. But beneath it, there's a really lovely positive message about doing what you love and being yourself - whoever you are. Very highly recommended, both as a charmingly progressive book and a hilarious one.

Madam, Will You Talk? (1955) is Mary Stewart's first published novel, and, from the few others I've read, sets the tone for many of the others: an attractive young woman, an exotic location, some thrills and the inevitable love interest. In this instance, we have the wonderfully-named Charity Selbourne, Avignon, car chases and an is-he-isn't-he-a-murderer, Richard Byron.

Although a "romantic thriller", the scenery is both the most romantic and the most thrilling part, with the south of France beautifully evoked. There are crumbling ruins, glorious landscapes, even the cultural quirks and proclivities (every meal, coffee, wink of an innkeeper is rendered in affectionate detail). There's no crisis so critical that Charity can't stop and have a delicious omelet at a quirky roadside inn. In fact, if Madam has a moral, is it to always stop and have an omelet - or an aperitif. Rushing around leads to confusion and musses the hair. To be fair, there are worse lessons.

Madam isn't quite as twisty and turny as I would've liked; the 'reveal' is a bit obvious and the actual "whodunnit-and-why" is, rather clunkily, pondered out at length by the protagonists. That said, as well as the gorgeous setting, Charity's an impressive protagonist, especially for 1955. Although her taste in men is a little dubious, she's never outclassed nor outgunned, and, rather surprisingly (again, 1955!), doesn't shy from action. Madam also has one of the best car chases I've read, with Charity doing her best Bond impression on the back roads of France. Madam, Will You Talk? is "charming" - not a word I'd generally use to describe a thriller, but in this case, it feels right.

Joseph Chadwick's Savage Breed (1959) is a dense little Western that combines the tropes of the genre with a surprising conclusion. Given the recent conversation about tropes in fantasy (see Sam Sykes' thoughtful blog post on the topic), this came as a convenient reminder that the growing pains of one genre can just as easily be found in another. Fantasy and Westerns make a good pair: two overtly macho, American-dominated genres that are often categorised solely as escapist entertainment (and, indeed, both genres often play 'down' to that level). But Westerns, I would argue, are a more mature genre - not in sales figures (despite the critical success of Westerns, they're still on the decline), but in the way the tropes have evolved. From epic to 'grimdark' to a synthesis of the two; archaic to contemporary to back again... pretty much everything fantasy has gone through in the past few decades, Westerns went through a half-century before.

Tuesday, September 03, 2013

Three rapid reviews of new releases - David Towsey's Your Brother's Blood, Elissa Wald's The Secret Lives of Married Women and Kass Morgan's The 100. All of which are either out now or about to be.

Hard Case Crime continue their recent run of brilliance with Elissa Wald's The Secret Lives of Married Women (2013). Ms. Wald is, rather shockingly, only the second female writer for the imprint (following in the footsteps of Christa Faust). The Secret Lives is essentially two interlinked novellas that follow a pair of twin sisters.

The first, Leda, is essentially a suburban housewife. After a brief career in film and a short stint in sales, Leda is now married, pregnant and a bit bored. As she sets up her new home with her husband, Stas, she meets a friendly builder. He soon crosses the line and becomes a bit of a pest - more so when it turns out that he knows something about Leda's past that even her husband doesn't. The story takes a startling twist, but, as is the book's theme, it isn't really about the 'mystery' (or the 'plot') as much as the character's response to what happens. The events around her trigger a curious response: leading her to question what she really wants out of life...

The second story has a bit more narrative trickery. Leda's sister Lillian is on the path for a different sort of success: she's a high-powered lawyer with a handsome husband, good money and tough reputation. One of her clients is accused of corruption, and, as she interviews a key witness (who turns out to be a former sex worker and professional submissive), Lillian is forced to confront her own hidden (or suppressed) desires.

Understandably, this sounds a bit...er... porny. And The Secret Lives doesn't shy away from its sexually-charged atmosphere. But it uses sex - specifically, submission - as a way of challenging assumptions and societal dictates regarding of 'success' and 'happiness'. Like the best noir, this is about the subtle difference between the two. Just because you get what you want doesn't mean it makes you happy...

The Secret Lives of Married Women is more a collection of character studies than a novel, but, individually, the stories are all fascinating. It took me a while to realise that there wasn't a big picture - nor was there going to be. This is an intense and intimate book; a compelling, unsettling read that doesn't hesitate to subvert the reader's assumptions, over and over again.

Monday, January 07, 2013

Shoe-Bar Stratton (1922) is about as Western a Western as ever wearily wandered West. "Buck" Stratton is the owner of some grazing land outside of Paloma Springs. He'd bought it immediately before heading off to war, and now, back from Europe, he's looking forward to returning to his cowboy life.

BUT WAIT... unscrupulous double-dealers have rustled Buck's whole ranch! The Shoe-Bar is now the property of Mary Thorne, who runs the ranch with the aid of Tex Lynch. Mighty mystified, Buck signs on as a lowly hand under the nom de cowboy of Bob Green. He's not sure what Mary and Tex are up to, but he's keen to figure it out.

The forces of good and evil align swiftly and predictably. Mary is a petite blonde with a bit o' pluck to her (there is, in fact, a chapter called "Nerve" in which Mary has some). She's a prisoner of both the opposition and her own gullibility - convinced that Tex and his cronies mean nothing but the best for her. On her side are Buck and one of the younger hands, an impressionable youth with a crush on Mary.

Against her, the clever and sinister Tex. The ranch boss is, amongst other things, suspiciously attractive - a lot of supposedly-straight cowboys are going on about Tex's piercing dark eyes and rosy cheeks. There are also some dodgy mobsters (seriously), some grumpy minions and a pair of sneaky Mexican servants - imagine Gollum with a disgracefully transcribed accent, and you're approaching the racist glory of Pedro and Maria.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Gunslingers. They're the fastest guns in the west, the quickest draws this side of the Mississippi, steady as a rock, can shoot the wings off a fly. And the best part about them is this: they can be anyone. These folks are reeling drunks, old fatasses, hopeless romantics, drifting loners, broken-down losers, haunted by Some Terrible Secret, dying of Some Terrible Disease, with nothing left to prove, or with everything left to prove. They're slow-pokes, stutterers, half-breeds, and women. They're the eternally overlooked and the eternally underestimated, no one's first pick for any team. And they're always, always your ace in the hole - the person whose clean draw or crack shot is going to change your showdown from certain death to unlikely victory.

It's no wonder our culture is so fascinated by gunslingers. They're all of this, and one thing more: they're us. We, with all our faults and pecadillos, have within us the same shining potential to do one pure thing in a lifetime of anonymous mediocrity. One perfect shot. Well, that's the idea, anyway.